


Mom

by SLWalker



Series: Midnight Blue [9]
Category: Midnight Blue - Fandom, due South
Genre: F/M, Gen, Parental illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-06
Updated: 2012-04-06
Packaged: 2017-11-03 03:04:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SLWalker/pseuds/SLWalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1993: <i>That was when he had broken into a cold sweat and stared at the receiver of the phone like it had just bitten him in the ear.</i>  Takes place fairly soon after Camaraderie in Arch to the Sky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mom

The paint was peeling. The grass was grown up, then left to die too high; trampled down in part by feet, but mostly overgrown. The fence was faded to gray, weathered wood, and he could see where rot was beginning to creep up from the bottom.

Mike felt the twitching tug in his hands to go and mow, stain the fence, scrape the house and paint it, make everything like it had looked when he still lived here. There was a white sheet of paper fluttering on the door. The car was gone. And that was far too much work for him to tackle in one afternoon. And he couldn't make himself move anyway. Just stood on the short, gravel driveway and tried to figure out.... figure out... everything.

Nothing. Everything.

He hadn't been back here in years. Visited not long after being transferred to Nipawin, because it had reminded him of Minitonas, and because it was a heck of a lot closer than the LMD had been, but only once. That was just how it was with them, him and his folks. They came to his wedding, then they went home. Sometimes he would call. Sometimes his mother would call. That was why he was here.

_"We're fine. Your father takes me to treatment, then the rest of the time we--"_

_"Wait, Mom... treatment? Huh?"_

_"Oh, chemotherapy. Takes a lot out of me, but we manage."_

That was when he had broken into a cold sweat and stared at the receiver of the phone like it had just bitten him in the ear.

That was how they were. Mike couldn't really remember a time when his parents put any of their burdens on him, and in turn, he didn't put any on them. They lived on parallel lines; sometimes even in view, but never to meet down the road. He wondered how long this had been going on. How long she... she was sick. He knew he wasn't being shielded; his parents didn't burden him, but they definitely never shielded him. They just didn't think it was relevant to tell him. There were a million things he never thought it was relevant to tell them, so he got that. But this was different.

This was different.

Now he stood in front of his childhood home and felt like he was going to fly apart out of his skin in every direction, standing stock still and trying to remember how to move.

_"I'll be there tomorrow."_

_"Really, Mike, it's not necessary."_

_"Mom... Mom, I'm just... I'll be there tomorrow."_

_"All right, suit yourself. I have an appointment in the early afternoon, but we'll be home after that."_

He hadn't told Cindy. Hadn't even _thought_ to tell Cindy. She was asleep when he got home, and she woke up late and had to hurry to get to work on time, and he just hadn't said anything. Called Russ and asked for the day off, didn't bother explaining why, and then got in his car and drove the five hours back to Minitonas. Most of it passed by without him even noticing the scenery, the radio cranked up in a futile attempt to stop the panicked scatter of his thoughts.

He would come back. If they needed him. Beg the RCMP to transfer him over here, so he could take care of things. His Dad obviously wasn't keeping up with the lawn and that, and Mike was nothing if not handy with those things. He wasn't sure what he'd do when it came to Cindy, because she was pretty established in her career and didn't have any plans on leaving it -- any transfers he took from here on were supposed to be in that area, at least -- and he didn't know what he'd do with their house, that he'd just bought a few years ago, but he'd come back. If it would help.

He took a slightly jerky step. The next after that came easier. Then the next. Up the creaky porch steps.

_Mike- There's casserole in the fridge. Make yourself at home. -Mom_

They hadn't changed their locks since moving in; he still had the key on his keyring, even though he hadn't used it since he was nineteen.

The house had changed since he had left for Regina inside, though; new wallpaper, new carpet, different fixtures and furniture. Every seven or eight years they changed things around. It looked clean, though, at least. Not like the outside or the yard or the fence or...

Mike stood in the door until he heard the furnace kick on and then closed it behind him. Tried not to feel like he was breaking and entering. If not for the picture of him in his serge with Mom on the mantle, and the picture of him and Cin at their wedding, he would have been -- was, mostly -- a stranger here. He wondered if that was how they would feel in his house.

She hadn't looked sick at the wedding. She looked really good; her hair was still dark and her face still soft-lined, only some fine lines around the corners of her eyes marking her as a woman over fifty. She looked like she always looked, except a little older. Not sick. Not sick. Not the kind of sick that needs _chemotherapy_. Yeah, it had been a few years, but that wasn't that _long_.

He ran both hands back through his hair, then locked them behind his head like he could physically hold himself there, and not scatter or bolt. He couldn't stand that feeling, mostly unfamiliar, of his limbs and his guts wanting to bolt without any kind of instruction from him to do so. He wasn't even hungry and he hadn't eaten since yesterday when he had gotten that call. His chest felt messed up.

He pulled his arms in close to his head, breathing as well as he could. Just... he had to calm down. There was nothing getting agitated would do, except make it even harder to stand here on the welcome mat of his parents' house and wait for them to get home. He should walk into the kitchen, get some casserole, sit down, eat. Maybe go out to the garage and see if he wanted to cart any more boxes home from his old room. He had a few left, mostly odds and ends and old school notebooks and a few flies he had tied himself that were really bad, but that he had been proud of.

He should do all that, but he was still standing just inside the door when they got home a half-hour later.

 

 

The awkward conversation only lasted twenty minutes. The real conversation never began.

She was thin. Too thin, pale, and she wore a hat because her long hair was gone, and the lines in her face had multiplied. She didn't look fifty-seven. She looked seventy or more. Only her eyes were the same. Her hands were bluish, and she had tape on her rings to keep them on her finger, and Mike almost couldn't breathe. Everything in him wanted to run and wrap his arms around her and bury his face in her shoulder, and everything in him wanted to run _away_ , and he couldn't do either, just stare and try to get air into his lungs and feel cold and fight against the sting in his eyes. He knew he managed the bare minimum of polite conversation because he could see Mom nod, but it wasn't enough, and then he locked up and didn't know how to talk any further. His head was spinning.

"Mike? Have you eaten? I left a note, there's casserole in the fridge," his mother said, calm as always, regarding him with some measure of confusion.

"Mom!" he finally burst out, incredulous and sharp, because of all the things in the world to talk about, _casserole_?!

"Don't," she answered, something more steely in her tone, at the exact same time as his father barked, "Michael James," like he was still a teenager misbehaving and not a grown man trying to grasp... to...

"Why didn't you _tell me_?!" he asked, still on too little air, winging right past her protest and his father's admonishment, because how could they just pretend like this was something to be calm about? "I could have-- I would have-- why didn't you tell me?!"

His father scowled and stood from his chair, walking over and hauling Mike up by an arm. Somewhere in the back of his reeling mind, Mike wondered at being hauled out to the proverbial woodshed for the first time since he was fourteen. His father hadn't often taken a belt to his backside, it was actually really _rare_ and usually involved firecrackers or escaped bullfrogs, but even at thirty-six, Mike expected exactly that to happen. He didn't even think to fight back, and when he was let go of in the garage, he didn't know what he would say. What he _could_ say.

"I understand that you're worried," his father said, calm again, "but we're managing fine. The doctors are doing all they can, and I've been encouraged by what they say. I don't see the need for you to come here and stir things up, Mike."

"Dad, _look at her_ ," Mike said, before he even had time to realize it, and hated himself for instantly forgetting all the years between boyhood and now, like standing on this property took them all away. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

"Take your voice down," his father snapped, and Mike clenched his teeth and dropped his head. Then, he continued, "There wasn't any point. Nothing you could do, nothing we needed. We're managing fine."

"She has _cancer_ ," Mike ground through his teeth, without looking up.

"Yes, she does. And she's getting treatment. There's no need for drama."

It was something that had been said of Mike more than once by both of them, and always it was dual-edged just the same between amusement and disapproval; that he was dramatic and sensitive, and he had spent his teenage years doing everything he could to be as undramatic and unsensitive as possible, even though he never quite figured out what they meant by either. Still didn't know.

"I'm not trying to stir things up," he said, still tight, still not daring to look up from the hard-packed dirt floor.

"Good. Then go in, visit with your mother, have some casserole. Are you planning on going home tonight, or should I make up the spare room?"

"I have to work tomorrow."

"All right."

Mike knew he was pushing it when he said, at his father's back as he left, "I just wanted to help."

"We're managing fine," his father answered, for the third and final time.

 

He couldn't quite figure out why he had such a strong drive to go and bury himself against Mom. They'd never been a physical family. He was pretty sure Cindy hugged him more times in a week than his parents would in a year, and it had taken him awhile to get used to that, but then again, she was his girlfriend, then wife, and that _was_ kind of different, but he still wanted to wrap his Mom around him and hold on like a little boy, and every instinct kept him from it.

He visited. Couldn't shake the cold, unanchored feeling, but he visited for an hour or so. Couldn't make himself eat, couldn't really make himself do much talking, except simple answers to simple questions. Then he left; gave his mother a too-short-too-long hug, feeling a spike at how frail she felt, and a handshake to his father, and then wandered back to his car like an accident victim.

Didn't really see anything on the five hours back, either.

Cin was waiting for him when he got home. She didn't look angry, just kind of bemused; it wasn't really like him to take off work, though she was pretty used to him disappearing on days off. They were like that, they could go off and do their own things and talk about 'em if they felt like it, or not if they didn't, and they kinda lived parallel lines too, except not. Because these lines met up.

Then she got a good look at him in the light of the kitchen and her no-nonsense voice made an appearance. "Mike. What happened?"

Mike blinked at his sink a few times, then got himself a glass of water. _Mom has cancer. She looks like she's dying. Maybe she is. No one told me. I don't know what to do._

"Mike," Cindy said again, more emphatically, and he realized he hadn't said any of that out loud. "What happened?"

"Mom," was all he actually managed to say. All the other words fled, the moment it came to trying to say them.

Cindy stared at him, he could feel it on the side of his face. Then she walked out of the kitchen and he could hear her dialing probably his parents' house, and maybe she thought he meant she had died. Cindy was really good at talking to them. She was good at talking to sick people, obviously, she was a nurse, that's her profession, so she would probably get more answers than Mike could. His parents had really seemed to like her.

He didn't listen for the conversation, just sipped the water and then set it aside and used his hand to wipe cold water over his face, again and again, like it could make things clear up.

She came back a few minutes later and bustled around behind him. "I made dinner. Tea or water?"

"Mm," Mike answered, because he didn't even know that answer right now, just shaking his head. He still didn't feel hungry, but he did feel kind of woozy. Probably should try to eat.

"Hey. Sit down," she said, and it was her command-tone again, but casual. He half-panicked for a few seconds that she _knew_ , then wondered why the heck he would and sat down. Of course she knew. He expected a dinner plate set in front of him, but what he got instead was a wife straddling his lap, wrapping herself around him and dragging his head toward her shoulder.

He tried to pull his head back. "Cin, I don't--"

"Stop." Cindy pulled back enough to look him in the eyes, and the look was so... so... and he couldn't make himself hold it, closing his eyes, turning his head away. He didn't want coddled, he didn't want handled, he didn't even want _touched_ , but she looked worried and she looked serious and she looked like it was important. Like it mattered.

"Mike, stop," she said again, softer, and this time he didn't fight, just rested his head against her shoulder when she drew him in again.

They stayed like that long enough for dinner to dry out in the warm oven, her combing through his hair until his legs were asleep and he could remember what taking a normal breath felt like, even if he hadn't quite gotten there yet.


End file.
